


Be Here and Be Holy

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Canon Timeline, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Wings, minor spoilers for 121, post-aeor, some emotional h/c, the lesbians go rogue and make their own date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28824690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: It's done. Aeor is behind them, however that looks, and it's time for them all to move forward. Beau and Yasha finally have a chance to breathe, and it's a reprieve that comes after their hoped-for future came so close to slipping through their fingers.Thoughts on what it means to stay, and a long-awaited date snatched from the middle of a sleepless Nicodranas night.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 25
Kudos: 273





	Be Here and Be Holy

**Author's Note:**

> I really got stuck on Yasha casually saying they should run away together and Beau agreeing immediately.

The terrace used to be where Beau went to sleep when nothing else worked, but tonight even the open air couldn't soothe her entirely. It seemed improbable that she should be awake, after everything, but her body had allowed her only something of a fitful nap before she'd woken, tangled in her blankets on the floor of the room she was sharing with Yasha and Fjord at the Chateau.

Her legs dangled over the side of the roof, threaded through the bars of the railing as Beau closed her eyes and let the salty Nicodranas breeze push through her hair like cool fingers. The moon was bright tonight, silver waves tucking in smooth sand and receding again past the silhouettes of trees far below.

It didn't feel real that it was all over, or at least as over as it could be. Aeor wasn't the kind of thing that could just be…shut off, but their efforts had likely bought the world another couple of generations.

That wasn't nothing, she knew, but it didn't feel like enough for the price that had been paid.

Beau's fingers were steady as they traced the jagged knot of healing tissue just under her ribs. The other marks would fade - were almost gone already - but this one was a souvenir from the final, desperate fight that she'd likely carry for the rest of her second life. There was a matching one on her back, slightly smaller, and both wounds already looked like something that happened a month ago.

That was the hardest thing to wrap her head around, that it couldn't have been more than fourteen hours since Beau had felt some essential part of her cut loose with a helpless, cold finality. Fourteen hours since the terrible nothing that yawned before her for a small eternity, until a warm hand touched her nonexistent shoulder and an unfamiliar, weirdly _maternal_ presence had filled her back in like sunlight breaking through clouds to wash color over a meadow.

She'd maybe cried a little, when she'd gasped back to life with a lingering smell of fresh soil and flowers. It was fine. If she couldn't cry after dying, when could she?

Soft footsteps brushed across the carpet in the room behind her just before the breeze kicked up again to cover the sound. Beau dropped her fingers to rest on her thigh and looked back to see Yasha nudging the glass-paned door open. She waved to Beau, hesitant.

Beau lifted her hand in greeting and tried for a smile. Yasha's expression was hard to read between the distance and the half light of the night, but she didn't look like she'd managed much in the way of sleep either. "Plenty of room," Beau offered. "Unless you want to be alone, I mean I could -"

"No, no." Yasha moved quickly now, like she was worried Beau might change her mind. "I just wanted to check on you. I woke up, and…" Yasha was a wonder of monochrome in daylight, and the pearlescent wash of moonbeams on her skin as she sat carefully next to Beau made her partial divinity unmistakable even to people who weren't Beau, probably.

"Sorry," Beau murmured. She leaned forward to rest her forehead on one of the bars. "Didn't mean to worry you. I just couldn't sleep."

She could make out the difference in the colors of Yasha's eyes even in the dark as they traveled over Beau, lingering on the new scar over her hipbone before turning out to the clear, starry sky. "I know what you mean," she said softly.

Beau thought for a moment, took the safer route. "Lucien?" 

Yasha's face told her the answer immediately, but part of Beau thought she might try to lie. Beau would have let her, whatever that said about things.

"No," said Yasha instead. Her eyes closed, and Beau glimpsed her fingers twitch where they rested on the knee that was almost touching Beau's thigh. "I never really…what happened was awful, but it didn't happen to Molly. It was just bad." Beau felt a quiet relief settle inside of her - she hadn't been sure how seeing Molly's body…unmade might affect Yasha. 

The relief dissolved into rising nerves again when Yasha opened her eyes, inhaled, and said, "I couldn't sleep because of what happened to _you_."

It wasn't that Beau didn't know Yasha cared for her - that they all did. It was just one thing to know and another to have it proven. She knew if she jumped off the roof she would fall, for instance. Didn't mean it felt the same as doing it.

"I'm okay," she assured, though whether it was for Yasha or herself she couldn't be entirely certain. That feeling of a thread being cut was still so _fresh_. That was _it_ , she was _done_. And then... "Caduceus took care of me."

Yasha said nothing, eyes shiny in the night. Beau's heart lurched as she scrambled to remember whether they'd been doing that already or if -

Before she could lose her nerve, Beau lifted her hand from her thigh and touched her fingers softly to the tops of Yasha's. A shuddery exhale fell from Yasha a second later, and her hand turned over to grasp Beau's.

"I saw you there," Yasha began, voice thick. "And all I could think was…we should've run. Back at the river."

Beau felt weightless again, found herself distantly surprised at how many different ways it was possible to feel the world pulled out from under her. She looked back out, away. "I would've, you know."

Yasha's head tipped down, focused on their joined hands. "Yeah." Beau caught the silver wink of a tear as it flashed into Yasha's lap, quick as a meteor. "But I didn't mean it. It was just an old instinct."

"Yash." Beau squeezed her hand gently and waited for Yasha to look at her. "I knew you didn't. Neither did I. I think that's why I could agree to go, because I knew you'd never really ask me to."

Yasha's face crumpled with a small noise that came from the back of her throat. She took a deep breath, then another. "You were gone," she said brokenly. "And there was this horrible second where I saw…you and me, far away while the world burned. And I wished for that instead."

This was guilt, Beau realized. Not guilt at Beau dying, guilt at wishing for that split second that she _had_ meant it, that they _had_ left everything behind together and avoided today.

"Hey," she coaxed. "It's okay. It doesn't matter that you maybe wanted the world to get fucked for a second - you didn't let it. You did everything right."

Yasha sniffed. "Sure," she said. "And you died anyway."

"Barely," Beau protested. Yasha looked at her incredulously, but Beau couldn't reel it in. It was hard enough for her to look directly at what had happened, to accept that death was something that could happen to her. It was hard enough to be rattled by the very present realization that her farsighted worry about life after the nein had _so much_ optimism and assumption about how long she'd live wrapped up in it. She couldn't handle Yasha grappling with it on her behalf. Not yet.

Beau held up two fingers, pinched them close. "Just a little death," she said, and grinned. "My favorite kind."

Yasha's sorrowful expression cracked, and that was all it took. They both started giggling like teenagers, and yeah - it probably wasn't the right reaction, but it was working for them and Beau would do anything to take some of the weight off of Yasha's shoulders. "Shoulds" had no place in their lives - any of them. They should all be dead a hundred times over. Or in jail - or hell, even running wine companies for their dads in the right clothes, fulfilling prophecies and shit.

But they weren't. The seven of them had built a family on spiting fate, and even though they all knew one day they'd lose, Beau was starting to appreciate the joy there was to be found in how many ways they could think of to outwit it between now and then.

Yasha leaned over and hugged Beau, which was its own kind of improbability and made her feel a little undone. It was a kind of awkward angle given the way they were sitting, but that felt pretty true to form. Beau buried closer and clenched her fingers in the fabric of Yasha's borrowed shirt. Their usual clothes were being seen to by the Chateau staff, and the soft linen top Yasha was wearing smelled like soap and sea and everything Yasha.

There had lingered a sense of disconnect when Beau awoke, an unavoidable comprehension now of how easily she could be yanked from this plane and this life she'd made for herself. With her ear squashed against Yasha's shoulder and Yasha's body warm under her arms and Yasha's chin pressed into her neck like this, it was so much harder to feel afraid. Yasha's arms were grounding, the faint pull in Beau's wound - wounds? - an anchor to her body.

"Hey," Beau murmured. Yasha's ear was so close like this, and she turned her head a little against Beau's shoulder in acknowledgement. "Wanna go somewhere?"

There was a beat of silence, and then Yasha sat up. "Really?"

Beau shrugged. "I'm not sleeping. You're not sleeping. There's nothing waiting for us tomorrow to worry about." She smiled. "And we still haven't had that date."

"Gods," Yasha breathed, but she was smiling too. "I was ready to take that...stupid city down singlehandedly, just to hurry up and get to that date."

Beau nodded sagely. "I was mostly trying very hard not to throw up on my own shoes, so I'm glad one of us could focus."

They shared another quiet laugh, and then Yasha closed one eye and pointed down at the shore far below. "You see that big rock there in the middle?"

Beau squinted. "Think so, yeah. With the two smaller ones on the left?"

"Yeah. I think that looks like a good spot, do you?" Beau's throat closed, and a nod was all she could manage. Yasha smiled conspiratorially. "Then let's go," she whispered.

Beau grinned and let Yasha pull her to her feet before letting go to grab the railing in preparation to jump it. There were enough terraces and thick tiles that she was pretty certain it would be a cinch to make it down, even with her healing wounds.

Yasha's hand on her other arm tightened, and Beau glanced back in puzzlement.

"I uh." Yasha rubbed at the back of her neck. "I was thinking I'd maybe…fly us down?"

Holy shit. Yes please. "Sure," Beau managed. "If you want, yeah, of course." She took in the width of the terrace and the offshoot of roof extending a foot or so below it, considering Yasha's impressive wingspan. That's all they needed, to break a window and wake everyone up. "We should probably clear the railing first."

"Oh," said Yasha. "Right. Still not used to..." She trailed off gestured vaguely behind her, and Beau flashed her a smile as they climbed over and found purchase below.

Well, Yasha did anyway. Beau's feet were still a few inches from the clay tiles and the stretch was pulling on her wounds. She landed a little harder than she'd have liked, but Yasha's hand grabbed her arm to steady her, and that was good too.

They looked over the roof together at the dizzying drop into the silver-capped trees swaying in the wind. When Beau looked to Yasha, she could see the same excitement that was unspooling inside of her reflected in the way her eyes gleamed in anticipation. Beau hadn't seen Yasha's wings since their flight on Rumblecusp, and the thought of getting to see them again now was making her jittery.

But it also made her want to ask something, this impossible night.

"Before we go," she said. Yasha looked at her curiously. "I guess I just. I am not complaining like, at all, but. How come you don't use your wings more often?"

She'd expected maybe a careless shrug, maybe something about discomfort with reconciling a change like that, but to her surprise, Yasha said, "I think…they're kind of an us thing, maybe." Beau must've had a strange expression at that - gods knew _she_ didn't know what she was feeling. "I tried them first because of you," Yasha elaborated. "And it felt like…I don't know, I liked being able to do this incredible thing with you instead of. Of fighting you."

The last part was barely audible, but Beau heard every word. "I was thinking about that a couple of days ago too," she confessed. "The fighting." She scratched nervously at her undercut. "Sorry if I made it weird. It's just such a _Yasha_ thing to be able to do. Fuckin' magical, you know?"

"Not weird." Yasha smiled softly. "And I've been thinking about fighting you longer than I've even thought there was...that we could do anything else. I think I like having a thing I can do that's just for us - a good thing." She looked out over the night, inhaled, and turned back to Beau. "Ready?"

Beau snapped out of her thoughts and blinked. "Yeah, of course. Sorry that's just…maybe the nicest thing anyone's said to me?" She stepped closer to Yasha to stand in front of her. "But just for the record, it's totally fine if you also use them to like. Not catch fire or to kill something." She shrugged. "That would still kinda be for me, if it helps."

Yasha smiled and picked her up in one smooth motion. "I'll definitely think about it," she said. "Now hold on."

Beau gave an excited wiggle and burrowed closer, and a moment later Yasha's soft expression lit up like day. Her wings were so bright that there were barely any shadows to shift across her face when they beat once with a mighty rushing noise.

Yasha peered over the edge of the Chateau, placed one foot along the lip, and leaped.

Beau had already been falling the first time, and it was so different to feel the world drop away when she hadn't been the one to jump. Her arm around Yasha's shoulder tightened reflexively, and Yasha just laughed as the first surge of an updraft caught beneath them and lifted them far, far up. Her face above Beau shone with a mixture of delight and radiance that made something inside of Beau glow in response, like she was feeling Yasha's healing magic all over from the inside.

Yasha looked so free like this, Beau thought, wind in her black and white hair and eyes dancing with a kind of joy that almost hurt to look at. Her irises might have been glowing too - it was hard to tell from this angle whether it was a backlight, inner radiance, or just plain exhilaration.

How had she been able to stand being grounded for so long? The sky was made for her. Yasha looked so at home here that Beau felt like a guest in someone's childhood town as they skimmed the treetops and lit the sand white and gold beneath. Yasha angled away from the shore at the last second and did a loop over the water, dark blue and black and gold in the light.

Finally they landed, and Yasha's wings shook once before dissolving and leaving Beau in moonlight that seemed sickly and wan by comparison for those few moments it took to adjust again.

"I hope I didn't wake anyone up," Yasha said, but her eyes flashed with something like mischief and she was still grinning as she set Beau gently on her feet.

"Someone probably made a wish on you," said Beau, who was definitely still considering it.

Yasha flushed slightly dark and lifted a hand to brush Beau's cheek, so now they were both blushing. At Yasha's hesitant expression, Beau pressed her warm face against her fingers in reassurance.

"Badass," she said, which made Yasha laugh.

"Come on." She turned and tugged Beau gently after her towards the shimmering waves. "I bet the water's warm."

Beau found she rather liked being too off-balance to be self-conscious and stumbled across the sand with a mildly startled "okay!"

As she followed, she looked closer at the change that had come over Yasha from the moment her wings had stretched free. The creature pulling her along was _unmistakably_ Yasha, and yet there was something - the moonlight, the bare feet, the radiance, maybe all of the above and more - that made her look so entirely otherworldly that Beau wondered how anyone could ever mistake her for human.

Alone with each other, here on this secluded beach - and it was secluded, because they couldn't even see this part from the Chateau - Beau got the distinct feeling she was looking at a version of Yasha that had been long buried. Maybe even a version that had never come out like this. Anything felt possible, anything at all.

They splashed out into the surf, heedless of soaking their clothes, and came to a mutual stop when the water was just under Beau's shoulders. There was a whole sky of stars above, glimmering ripples around them, and a moon-washed beach twenty feet away, but Yasha was only looking at Beau.

"Well?" Yasha breathed, and standing over her like this, Beau felt like she could almost hear the heartbeat coming from that great chest before her.

Proximity was doing things to her, which she expected, but "things" felt like they maybe included her heart, which she hadn't. "Well what?" she squeaked.

"You'll have to tell me what the next step is," Yasha prompted. Was that a hint of teasing? "I haven't really done this part much."

She looked _wild_ , Beau thought. In the truest sense of the word. There was some kind of ferality to the white tips of her hair in the water and the way her hands were wrapped loosely around Beau's upper arms. This was a Yasha with nothing to lose, only this time her reckless dive was for Beau. It was hard to know what to do with that.

"I have no fucking clue," Beau confessed. "All my dates involved alcohol and crime? It's uh. Caleb was gonna cover the alcohol with the tower, but it's whatever because you used your _wings_ , for me, and also standing here in a giant salty puddle is somehow way better than anything I could've -"

"Beau," Yasha interrupted, and now she was definitely teasing. It was there in the curl of her mouth and the gentle cock of her head.

"That's my name," she said shakily.

  
Yasha lowered her forehead until it was touching Beau's. Her hair tickled; Beau felt goosebumps prickle from her cheeks down her arms under the water.

"Beau," Yasha repeated, lower this time and with nothing but a soft kind of reverence - like she wasn't the actual angel between the two of them.

Beau realized that Yasha kissing her was a matter of when, not if, and it was starting to look like seconds instead of some distant but possible future. Yasha was only holding back for her, leaving the space open if Beau wanted to take the step instead.

The way Beau saw it, Yasha had truly started this. Beau had no idea how much longer she would have kept telling herself it was best not to want, to be happy with their friendship. And she could've been, if that's what Yasha wanted.

But Yasha wanted her - when her instinct had kicked in to run, she had wanted Beau _with her_.

And Beau would have gone, which meant there was really nothing left to guess.

"Yasha," she murmured in reply, and then Beau reached up out of the water to cup Yasha's jaw and lifted her chin to meet her.

* * *

They did fall asleep at some point, or at least Beau did, and when she woke it was to the light of a dawn not yet broken and the steady rhythm of walking. She was on Yasha's back, she realized, being carried back to the Chateau and to their family like Luc after they'd taken him to the traveling market that one time. His tiny body had metabolized roughly his own weight in sugar, and he'd fallen asleep on Yasha's shoulders. Nobody had seen a reason to move him.

Yasha was carrying her just as easily now, and Beau couldn't find it in herself to do anything more than lift one dangling arm to squeeze Yasha softly under the neck, just the once.

Yasha's head pressed gently against hers as Beau's eyes drifted shut again. "Almost there," she said, and Beau managed a muted sound before she fell asleep again to Yasha's quiet laugh.

* * *

When she woke again for real, the sun was high and splashed bright across the foot of the bed, and Beau was tucked under soft blankets with a warm weight pressed behind her. One long, green tattoo caught the light and winked atop the arm slung over her waist, and she could hear steady breathing over her head.

Beau turned as carefully as she could and felt her own breath catch as she took in the sight of Yasha sleeping peacefully, lips parted and partially rimmed with fine salt and a little sand stuck to her cheek. Beau had seen her sleep before, of course, but never from this position, never after a night spent laughing and splashing and sitting with their feet shoved in wet sand just talking for once.

All of that had been incredible, and the kiss still had her chest feeling as bright as Yasha's wings.

She was unsurprised when Yasha began to stir - all of them had developed that waking sense of being watched, and Beau had not been subtle. Yasha's eyes fluttered open and a soft smile spread over her face. Whether it was shy or sleep-smudged was hard to say, but it was there in her voice when she murmured something that was probably "morning."

"Hey," Beau replied. "What are you doing over there with just a sheet when there's blankets?"

Yasha's arm tightened and she yawned hugely before blinking muzzily at the sheet covering her. "Din't put that there," she muttered. "Blankets were for you."

It must have been Fjord then, and the thought warmed her as much as it made her feel just a little too soft for how long she'd been awake. She needed an hour between the ordeal of morning and thinking about people being nice - whether to her or to her girlfriend.

Her girlfriend, who was apparently fine with carrying Beau to bed and snuggling but drew the line at sharing blankets.

Beau exhaled in mock exasperation and pushed on Yasha's shoulder, ignoring her sleepy mumbling to pull at the blankets until Yasha caught on and flopped her arm to shake the sheet off and burrow underneath with Beau. Yasha pressed herself fully against Beau's side and stretched her hand to rest on her opposite hip with a happy kind of sigh, one that made Beau's heart clench again with that unfamiliar and overpowering affection.

Yasha nestled a leg between Beau's and buried her nose against her temple and seemed finally satisfied to be still. "Five more minutes," she mumbled.

Beau smiled and reached over to tuck some of Yasha's salt-stiff hair behind her ear. "I'm feeling good," she said. "You can have six for carrying me back."

Yasha's huff made it partially inside of Beau's ear and she jumped, making them both laugh quietly as Yasha squeezed her.

One day since she'd died, Beau thought, and she'd never felt quite so alive. She should get up, do her morning stretches, get the sand off of her in a hot bath. She definitely needed to eat, too.

But the sun was so warm after weeks in driving ice and snow, and Yasha's expression slack in the sleep she'd readily tumbled back into was impossible to pull her eyes from, and just for today, Beau was content to stay right here a while longer.

There was no need to run - the world would wait for them.

**Author's Note:**

> (Jester was asleep with her mama because well, she needed to stay in her room, after all that happened.)


End file.
